Trouble logging in?If you can't remember your password or are having trouble logging in, you will have to reset your password. If you have trouble resetting your password (for example, if you lost access to the original email address), please do not start posting with a new account, as this is against the forum rules. If you create a temporary account, please contact us right away via Forum Support, and send us any information you can about your original account, such as the account name and any email address that may have been associated with it.

I also believe the V9's were packing micros missile launchers too. Interesting point about the Judahs, could Grace have hacked them ala Sharon Apple if she was actually paying attention to the micros of the battle? I still would have really liked to have seen the NUNS and SMS pilots taking out the Ghost but because of the shear numbers I have to believe the Vajra were the ones that took them down.

Maybe ReddyRedWolf can tell us whether Grace would have been able to hacked the Judah equipped Ghosts or not. I honestly have no idea how powerful Grace's "cyber prowness" is compared to Sharon Apple's.

As far as I know NUN and SMS pilots wouldn't fair too well against ghosts. The original X9 took Guld to school.

Maybe ReddyRedWolf can tell us whether Grace would have been able to hacked the Judah equipped Ghosts or not. I honestly have no idea how powerful Grace's "cyber prowness" is compared to Sharon Apple's.

As far as I know NUN and SMS pilots wouldn't fair too well against ghosts. The original X9 took Guld to school.

Well when Sharon Apple took over the X-9 she also took over the main systems of the Earth defense network using the Macross.

Infected the X-9 through there.

As for Grace hacking the three AIF-7S Ghosts of Luca, given the bad rep AI got from the Sharon Apple incident I'm sure he did some countermeasures.

Basically from Luca's point of view this an opportunity for AI to prove themselves from the stereotyped AI with self-preservation priorities.

It was a hive minded AI versus an independent minded AI in the Ghost on Ghost battle.

If they happen to run low for some reason, all they have to do is pull up to a star systems oort cloud and pick up a bunch of ice rocks or comets. That's not all that hard to do. Its only oxygen and hydrogen.

Question. There seems to be some difference in terms being used between beam weapon and laser. What are we classifying as a "beam weapon".

Technically, the beam weapons seem to be described generically as any directed-energy weapon that is NOT a laser. THat's about as concrete a definition as we have for the energy weapons in Macross.

The official Macross statistics have made a distinction between beam weapons and lasers from the original SDF Macross all the way up to Macross 7. However, the official statistics released thus far for the Macross Frontier mecha describes only beam guns armaments. They may not use lasers on any of the mecha in Macross Frontier. Particularly telling is the fact that the head mounted weapons on both the VF-25 Messiah and the VF-27 Lucifer are beam weapons. Traditionally, lasers have been mounted on the head units of the Valkyries more often than not.

I've built some entries on the Macross Mecha Manual to assist in describing the literature on the subject. You can read them in the link here Macropedia on the Macross Mecha Manual but I've also copied and pasted the entries in my post here on AS. See below:

Quote:

Beam Gun/Cannon

A generic term used to describe non-laser directed-energy weapons that project some type of particle as opposed to a physical projectile. Beam weapons damage targets via kinetic force and heat and are also versatile weapons operable within an atmosphere, underwater or in space. The most common type of beam weapon is the converging energy beam cannon used as the main gun for many large military space ships (see Super-Dimension-Energy Cannon) or as weapons on variable fighters. Many different types of beam weapons exist such as the Mauler RO-X2A high-powered double-action beam cannon (found on the VF-1S Strike Valkyrie), large beam cannons (found on the VF-4 Lightning III), the Mauler REB-20G converging energy cannons (found on the YF-19), the small-bore rear anti-aircraft beam gun (found on the VF-19A, VF-19F and VF-19S Excalibur) and the high-powered converging energy cannon (found on the VF-22 Sturmvogel II). Beam weapons may also be described as simply "Beam Gun" or other names such as particle cannons and electron beam guns

Quote:

Laser

Acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A laser emits light in a narrow, low-divergence beam with a narrow wavelength spectrum and is used in numerous applications from optical storage to rangefinding. After discovery of OverTechnology, practical laser weapons became a reality and were made standard on nearly all variable fighters. The Mauler RÖV-20 Laser Cannon on the VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter is a typical high-powered laser capable of destroying most armored mecha, ideal for point defense and a potent anti-aircraft weapon. Pulse Lasers are another type of laser weapon found on the VF-5000 Star Mirage and the VF-11 Thunderbolt.
NOTE: Macross, like most other science fiction, uses the term laser as an easily recognizable directed-energy weapon that most audiences will understand when described in dialog. However, real lasers are ordinarily invisible in space, travel at the speed of light and do not have any kinetic force. In the context of Macross, it is understood the term laser refers to OverTechnology weapons that fire visible energy beams, may propagate much slower than light speed, may fire in bursts or continuous beams and may produce destructive effects that are unlike those of real lasers.

Daigo: You mentioned that an OKW has a giant space heatsink. This is incorrect. While Space is a vacuum and may be absolute zero, because it is a vacuum you are unable to vent off that excess heat, because there is no medium to transfer the heat from your OKW into space.

That's what radiator fins are for.

Quote:

But aircraft carriers being obselete? Not very likely. You'll still need pilots flying top cover to protect the ground pounders, especially in the Marine Corps, which jealously guards its air wings from misappropriation by everyone else. In the words of a Marine 2-star at a NATO conference: "We regard our airplanes as goddamned rifles with wings."

That's what the orbital weapons are for. That's what we've been discussing this whole time. You have to argue what an airplane can do that an orbital weapon can't, or what can it do better.

Orbital weapons can not transport people, can not hide by any means other than stealth technology, can not be rapidly moved to a response zone that's on the opposite end of engagement zone. Also, depending on it's orbit, said weapon may or may not be in position for firing.

If we're talking about the macross universe: orbital weapons can not engage in urban fighting (Destriod mode) or close quarters combat within a vessel. Because of their stationary nature are very susceptible from long range bombardment such as with a macross cannon.

Another big issue regarding orbital weapons is how difficult they are to service. If it fires solid projectiles then someone's going to have to meet it in orbit to reload. Someone will also have to service it should the power supply run out, the sensors need calibration, or for any repairs. As also pointed out, they are mostly defenseless. You don't even need a missile in space. A simple spherical projectile fired at high enough velocity from outside the satellite's sensor range will be undetectable and utterly demolish the satellite.

Still not going to work. Let's take a modern-day heatsink as an example. The heatsink works by taking heat from the CPU and transferring it to air. There is a medium that allows heat transfer from the CPU. If there is no air, there cannot be any heat transfer. Now of course we can substitute it with water, or other mediums, but you cannot transfer heat from one object into vacuum. It will not happen, and violates thermodynamics.

So yes you can put radiator fins. Won't make a difference, since there's nothing the fins can transfer to.

Quote:

That's what the orbital weapons are for. That's what we've been discussing this whole time. You have to argue what an airplane can do that an orbital weapon can't, or what can it do better.

Thing is, orbital weapons have huge yields. You cannot use them for CAS missions or for danger close shots (unless A) you have big ones; B) you're about to be overrun so you might as well risk it since you have nothing to lose). You're also assuming that your faction will be the only person with OKWs in service, but if more nations put OKWS into service, you end up in another nuclear stalemate MAD scenario. You don't dare to use your OKWs because when you've fired yours and can't use them temporarily, the other guy will take the opportunity to pound you to pieces. It's like how the US and USSR maintained huge nuclear arsenals that were never used.

Also, note that in my context, referring to Marines, is Close Air Support. An OKW cannot provide close air support. CAS by friendly ground attack fighters and helicopter gunships is still the best protection for an infantry landing force being deployed by helicopter.

Then let's consider the fact that an OKW can only destroy, and cannot take ground; you need troops for that and you need helicopters and VTOLs for that - airmobility. And in today's current age of COIN warfare, troops on the ground is more important. Note that the US Army, which has traditionally listed artillery as a key role, has now de-emphasised artillery in recognition of the fact that stabilisation operations and counter insurgency warfare are the battles that it will be fighting now and in the future. (The Marines meanwhile have already added COIN skills to those learned at Basic and Infantry School at 29 Palms).

Finally, cost. Putting an OKW system in space, with enough coverage to strike all over the world, would be too expensive. Don't believe me? That's what happened to the Brilliant Pebbles sub-program of the US SDI, which was a series of sattelites mounted with heatseekers to take out ICBMs. Cost and figuring out how to get everything up there and service it was just too much trouble.

Orbital weapons can not transport people, can not hide by any means other than stealth technology, can not be rapidly moved to a response zone that's on the opposite end of engagement zone. Also, depending on it's orbit, said weapon may or may not be in position for firing.

If we're talking about the macross universe: orbital weapons can not engage in urban fighting (Destriod mode) or close quarters combat within a vessel. Because of their stationary nature are very susceptible from long range bombardment such as with a macross cannon.

And F/A-18's can't do those things either, so what's your point? Oh, and yes OW's can be rapidly moved to a response zone on the opposite end of engagement zone. OW's have much greater range, and firing arcs than airplanes do. Considering they have a firing arc of a little less than half of a global hemisphere, yea, they are far more responsive.

They can't, but that's what ground troops are for.

Quote:

Another big issue regarding orbital weapons is how difficult they are to service. If it fires solid projectiles then someone's going to have to meet it in orbit to reload. Someone will also have to service it should the power supply run out, the sensors need calibration, or for any repairs. As also pointed out, they are mostly defenseless. You don't even need a missile in space. A simple spherical projectile fired at high enough velocity from outside the satellite's sensor range will be undetectable and utterly demolish the satellite.

Depends on what the OW is. It can be a satelite, or it can be a death dealing battleship. Either counts as a OW. In any case, they are hardly defenseless, laser defenses are the logical choice. Haha, no. That spherical projectile has to fight against a gravity well, and presents an easy target for a OW in space armed with lasers. Not to mention unguided projectiles aren't very useful against targets in space. Too inaccurate.

Quote:

Still not going to work. Let's take a modern-day heatsink as an example. The heatsink works by taking heat from the CPU and transferring it to air. There is a medium that allows heat transfer from the CPU. If there is no air, there cannot be any heat transfer. Now of course we can substitute it with water, or other mediums, but you cannot transfer heat from one object into vacuum. It will not happen, and violates thermodynamics.

So yes you can put radiator fins. Won't make a difference, since there's nothing the fins can transfer to.

One thing about orbital rail guns is that they are inherently in-accurate in targeting since the magnetic field around earth is always at flux interfering the projectile trajectory.
At a distance of three hundred miles going through variances within the earth's magnetic field makes it impossible to accurately target within a kilometer radius.
No good in usage for ground support.

Note to all, flamers and personal attacks will be ignored. If you persist in them, I'll merely report you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

One thing about orbital rail guns is that they are inherently in-accurate in targeting since the magnetic field around earth is always at flux interfering the projectile trajectory.
At a distance of three hundred miles going through variances within the earth's magnetic field makes it impossible to accurately target within a kilometer radius.
No good in usage for ground support.

No. Not even remotely true. For one thing, the projectiles launched from a railgun don't have to be ferromagnetic, they only have to be conductive. A tungsten slug is diamagnetic, meaning it's as magnetic as a piece of wood. Furthermore, even if it was magnetic, it would not be profoundly affected by earth's magnetic field because it's so pathetically weak. The amount of energy required to create a magnetic field that would profoundly affect a hypervelocity ferromagnetic object is ridiculously high especially considering a magnetic field's strength falls off exponentially the further you are from the source.

No. Not even remotely true. For one thing, the projectiles launched from a railgun don't have to be ferromagnetic, they only have to be conductive. A tungsten slug is diamagnetic, meaning it's as magnetic as a piece of wood. Furthermore, even if it was magnetic, it would not be profoundly affected by earth's magnetic field because it's so pathetically weak. The amount of energy required to create a magnetic field that would profoundly affect a hypervelocity ferromagnetic object is ridiculously high especially considering a magnetic field's strength falls off exponentially the further you are from the source.

None of which actually answers the point that "Rods from God," do not make good close support weapons. They take a significant amount of time to arrive on target and will only have a brief window of oppertunity to attack. You can't just fire straight down, you have to fire at an angle so your round survives reentry.

There's also the concern about weapon power. There's a lot of kinetic energy in orbital kinetic weapons, maybe too much to make them useful for close support. This also applies to collateral damage, as in Rods from God are good at causing it, which is fine if you don't care about who you're killing, but does make them just a little impractical for urban combat.

Of course, none of this changes the most important thing, which is that to take and hold territory, you need boots on the ground, and that means infantry. That infantry will need support, which in the Macross universe are Destroids and Variable Fighters. Why no just use troopships? Because Troopships aren't designed to deploy fighters in combat. If they were, they become carriers.

Most importantly though, Orbital Weapons are next to useless in Macross except for planetary defense, as they don't fight people who live on planets. Everyone that is a serious threat to the UN Spacy/NUNS lives and fights primarily in space and with massive swarms of smaller, fighter sized craft. So, lots of carriers and lots of fighters make sense from a doctrinal point of view until such a time as the UN Space/NUNS develop perfect point defense and ships capable of dealing with Rogue Zentraedi warships on even terms.

And F/A-18's can't do those things either, so what's your point? Oh, and yes OW's can be rapidly moved to a response zone on the opposite end of engagement zone. OW's have much greater range, and firing arcs than airplanes do. Considering they have a firing arc of a little less than half of a global hemisphere, yea, they are far more responsive.

Consider that the US has had spy sattelites in place since the 70s, and retasking sats to cover situations is a big fucking issue, so much so that Predators are now getting much more mileage because they can be onstation more and have a faster response - and they're not limited by weather and all those things that fuck up sattelite imagery. Your orbital death grid won't do you much good if you can't target.

Quote:

Depends on what the OW is. It can be a satelite, or it can be a death dealing battleship. Either counts as a OW. In any case, they are hardly defenseless, laser defenses are the logical choice. Haha, no. That spherical projectile has to fight against a gravity well, and presents an easy target for a OW in space armed with lasers. Not to mention unguided projectiles aren't very useful against targets in space. Too inaccurate.

I'd like to see what you mean by laser defenses. Explain.

One more thing: If you have a laser powerful enough to shoot down from orbit then why can't you use one from the ground to shoot back up?

I also see that you did not address the issues with servicing, maintaining and repairing the OW, regardless of whether it was a sattelite or ship.

I'd forgotten about the radiator fins and that heat can be vented as IR directly, but note that they admit themselves that radiator fins and gas venting still isn't going to be as efficient as air or water cooling. In fact the ground-based installation is going to have more cooling, since it's got atmosphere (or the ocean), and more of it. Also your link points out like another 50 issues, the biggest among them being cooling. As that link says, lasers are not infinite fire weapons.

Quote:

They have variable yields. They can be armed with tungesten penetrators, lasers , nuclear missiles, etc. Yea, you can. We've went over this already.

First off, you were talking directly about Orbital Kinetic Weapons. I see you've dropped the kinetic part to have the whole shebang - tactical retreat to higher ground? Well, it's not like I haven't seen it before (and it broadens the scope of discussion, which is hardly a bad thing IMO).

Secondly, even with tungsten penetrators, you're looking at large yields - very big blast craters. And if you go for missiles with small footprints - like equivalent to the 250lb SDB that's being developed, then you might as well just use aircraft. Cheaper and quicker reaction times.

Quote:

Neither can an artillery strike. So what? Except an OW hits in a matter of seconds or less, so it's more of an issue of whether or not to push the button in the first place so to speak.

True, but I was referring to the fact that CAS aircraft on-station, guided by an FAC, have a clearer picture of what's going on than a guy taking a satellite feed sitting far away.

Quote:

Neither can an F/A-18. You don't need an aircraft carrier for that.

You do need somewhere for the medevac bird to land, don't you? You're not recognising where I'm coming from here: this particular context is that of an amphibious assault. Heliborne marines deployed from LHAs and LHDs and being medevac'ed back when wounded.

Besides, you only said "aircraft", which is not limited to fighters There are plans to make the MV-22 into a gunship, afterall...

Quote:

No one said it did, not was trying to argue that it does.

That's not the impression I get from you, Daigo.

You also haven't addressed my previous point on the MAD issue. You've also overlooked something: if satellites are really immune to all forms of attack, why is it that the US still trains and prepares for combat without any form of satellite support? You'd think that the nation with the mightiest military in the world would have satellites that would be invulnerable...

Also, you've forgotten a weak link in your orbital death grid, Daigo. I'll let you think abit about that weak link for a bit.

Bottom line though, while the idea of orbital weapons is cool, it's just not practical enough. No nation will find OW installations if they're going to be white elephants and if they're satisfied with what they have. America's nuclear arsenal, while powerful, has essentially been a white elephant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daigo

Note to all, flamers and personal attacks will be ignored. If you persist in them, I'll merely report you.

I'm not sure how commenting on how you seem to have missed the point of this thread, this spirit of the Macross universe, and that we've gotten pretty derailed from purpose of this thread is a personal attack.

__________________

~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States
in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including
the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies

The Outer Space Treaty was considered by the Legal Subcommittee in 1966 and agreement was reached in the General Assembly in the same year ( resolution 2222 (XXI). The Treaty was largely based on the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, which had been adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 1962 (XVIII) in 1963, but added a few new provisions. The Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967. The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:

* the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;

* outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;

* outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;

* States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
* the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;

* astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;

* States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental activities;

* States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
* States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.

Oh my goodness nobody can claim they own outer space. Also you shouldn't place weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

Unless you want every superpower and country in the world as your enemy.

We;re also forgetting the whole trauma factor; after Earth was burned clean by the Rain of Death, I'm very sure the survivors would not want orbital weapons around their planet. Japan, for instance, can become a nuclear power with very little effort, but does not do so due to the psychological scarring that came from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

__________________

~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.